My hometown Athletics generally tend to have spurts of excellence. They had 4 playoff appearances in a row from 2000-2003, and another in 2006. The Athletics generally have been able to develop some players, but the depressing part is that almost invariably they have moved these players to acquire younger, cheaper players in order to stay competitive. All information is drawn from Baseball Reference.

The Athletics have had 32 draft picks in the first round since 1995, including the notorious Moneyball draft of 2002 where they had 7 picks. They’ve done reasonably well in the first round, with Barry Zito, Eric Chavez, Joe Blanton, Nick Swisher and Huston Street all showing as successes from the round. They have also seen some a lot of successful players out of the 2nd round, but not nearly as many of these players showed their success with the Athletics. Most notably is probably RF Andre Ethier, who was traded to the Dodgers for Milton Bradley before the 2006 season. The team did make a playoff appearance in 2006, and was helped by Milton Bradley’s production, but I’m guessing that they would still love to have Ethier back.

International Free Agency

The Athletics haven’t been particularly good at finding international free agents, with only Miguel Tejada and Ramon Hernandez showing up on this roster. Part of this is the fact that they were unwilling to spend money on the top tier talent, as they would use that money for other items within development instead. That policy has changed slightly in the past few years, as the A’s have signed some top prospects out of the Dominican, most notably Michael Ynoa, a very young, very projectable pitcher. Time will tell if they will continue to see some prospects out of the international markets, but to this point the return has not been all that good.

Overall Grade

I think that the Athletics get my first “C”, as they have seen some excellent success stories (Zito, Chavez, Hudson), but there are quite a few of these players who did not make any appearances at all with the big league team. The fact that the international market has been so poor of a talent pool for them is what keeps me from moving them further up in the rankings.

This group of lefty relievers did well, as both Gonzalez and Wagner received high dollar contracts that I, for one, did not really see them getting out of the teams that they did. Gonzalez seems like he was a good signing for the Orioles, as he can help to stabilize the bullpen for the very young rotation they have. Wagner was a bit of an unusual signing, as he was a type-A free agent. The Braves could have kept either Gonzalez or Rafael Soriano without having to give up the draft picks, but felt that Wagner was a better fit instead. That said, there is a certain swagger that Wagner can bring to the club that I don’t think either Gonzalez or Soriano would provide.

Right Handed Relievers

Name

Old

New

Years

Total $

Jose Valverde

HOU

DET

2

$14 M

Fernando Rodney

DET

LAA

2

$11 M

Rafael Soriano

ATL

ATL/TAM

1

$7.25 M

Kevin Gregg

CHC

TOR

1

$2.75 M

Takashi Saito

BOS

ATL

1

$3.2 M

J.J. Putz

NYM

CHW

1

$3 M

Octavio Dotel

CHW

PIT

1

$3.5 M

Rafael Betancourt

COL

COL

2

$7.55 M

Matt Capps

PIT

WAS

1

$3.5 M

Kelvim Escobar

LAA

NYM

1

$1.25 M

LaTroy Hawkins

HOU

MIL

2

$7.5 M

Brandon Lyon

DET

HOU

3

$15 M

Notable Remaining Free Agents: Kiko Calero (FLA)

Lots of closers in this group. The Rodney signing was interesting to me, as it signals either one of two things: Rodney isn’t that concerned about being a closer, as he could probably have gotten a job as one with a number of teams, and 2)the Angels have very little faith as Brian Fuentes as the closer. Either way, definitely something to be watched. Washington, Houston, Detroit, and possibly Pittsburgh all got closers off of the free agent pool this year. The other interesting trend was the musical chairs game played by some of the teams, with Valverde and Lyon essentially trading spots, and deciding that the player they don’t know is going to be better than the player they do.